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Canetons Aux Olives

Ducklings roasted with lard, onions, olives, and Madeira sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and olive are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,779 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Canetons Aux Olives

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the ducklings

  1. Dress the canetons and tie them for roasting.

  2. Sauté the canetons in a pan with grated lard and small onions.

  3. Season until they are nicely browned.

  4. Add white wine and broth, bringing to a boil.

Roast and serve

  1. Cover with buttered paper and place in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) until cooked.

  2. Drain the canetons and slice them.

  3. Arrange on a layer of poached stuffing on a platter, interspersed with blanched olives.

  4. Cover the canetons and garnishes with a bit of sauce madère.

  5. Serve the remaining sauce separately.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Onion + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Onion + white winetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,535 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. White wine + olivetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,949 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  4. Onion + saucetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Olive + saucetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,568 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Onion and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,474 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Canetons
Provide the main meat, which browns in the pan and becomes tender while roasting.
Lard
Adds fat for browning the ducklings and carries flavour into the skin.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the pan liquid, helping lift the browned bits into the sauce.
Olives
Add a salty, briny note that contrasts with the rich duck meat.
Sauce madère
Adds a rich, savoury coating that moistens the sliced duck.

The step that matters

Season until nicely browned. Browning relies on the Maillard reaction, which needs a dry surface and enough heat. Crowding the pan or leaving moisture on the birds steams them instead, giving pale skin and weaker flavour.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (white wine, olive, sauce):

  1. Tomatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against white wine, olive, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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